In the Shadow of the Gallows Pole
by BSparrow
Summary: If he didn't speak her name, he would be hanged. But if he did, it would be a death sentence for them both. WARNING: Character death.


Blue eyes haunted his dreams.

Every time he closed his own, he saw them. Sometimes they were crying, sometimes they were bright. But they were always hers.

He didn't sleep at all the night before. As his time ticked away, he thought of only her. Of how much he'd like to see those eyes again, that smile, that red hair blazing copper and gold in the afternoon sun.

He thought of how the sun would warm her pale skin, of how she'd turn her face up to it and close her eyes to let it caress her like a lover.

When dawn came for him, his hands were still tingling with the feel of her. He could smell her, hear her voice ringing in his ears.

And for the first time, he let himself cry.

* * *

><p>They'd been playing a dangerous game for too long. He should have expected it to end this way.<p>

Stories like theirs didn't have happy endings.

Deputy Peletier was a cruel man. Everyone in town knew it. They saw the way his pretty wife acted – skittish as an unbroken mare, afraid of her own shadow.

It was a poor choice to fall in love with her but fall in love with her he had. And she loved him too, fiercely.

They understood one another. Though they were merely remnants of the past, she cried when she saw the scars on his back and he wanted to do the same when he saw the purple stains her husband left on her pale skin. They were very much part of the present.

He made her promises he intended to keep. He told her he'd save her. They would run away together, somewhere far away where no one knew them and they could live as husband and wife, where they could walk in the sun rather than stealing moments in the darkness.

When she told him the news that night, that very night, she apologized. She actually apologized. But he wasn't sorry and he told her so. They would leave the next morning.

He was still smiling when the sheriff came for him.

There were witnesses, the sheriff told him, that saw him stab a man outside Town Hall and run off into the night. Enough witnesses that he would be charged with murder. Did he have an alibi?

_Did_ he have an alibi?

His alibi would be at home in bed by now and she would be safe because her husband was here with the sheriff, watching him with cold eyes.

If he didn't speak her name, he would be hanged but if he did, it would be a death sentence for them both.

No, he told the sheriff. No, he didn't have an alibi.

* * *

><p>His last morning was a cold one. The wind blowing down from the north cut right through him as they led him to the gallows.<p>

A crowd had gathered to see him off and he stood before them defiantly, feet planted on the door that would swing away at the executioner's command.

Someone was speaking, praying for his soul he would wager, but all he could hear was his own heart pounding, desperately trying to break through his chest and save itself.

The rope was settled around his neck, heavy and rough. He sucked in a deep breath, nostrils flaring, and found it was harder to breathe when those breaths were numbered.

He stared down at the red clay where they would soon plant him, blinking quick to keep his eyes dry.

What cut him the deepest was knowing he'd never see her face again. He'd never look into those blue eyes and pull her close. He'd never tell her he loved her. And he'd never save her, as he'd promised, from a life in hell with the devil as her husband.

Heavy, hollow footsteps rang out on the planks behind him and he clenched his hands into fists, trying to stop the trembling.

Then he raised his head and stared down into the same blue eyes he'd been haunted by, the ones he never thought he'd see again.

There she was, standing in the crowd. When their eyes met, she didn't give a thing away, for next to her stood Ed Peletier.

He couldn't catch his breath anymore. Time was moving fast now, running out on him just when he needed it the most. The sun was clearing the trees, its first brilliant rays pouring down from the clear sky. He saw the light dancing in her hair, touching her soft skin, and shining in her eyes.

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder. "Do you have any last words, son?"

He couldn't look away from her. Did he have any last words? Was there anything left to say?

His voice only cracked a little when he told her, "I ain't sorry."

He didn't hear the gasp from the crowd. Those eyes closed tight and then opened again, brighter than before.

And as the world swung out from beneath him, the last thing he saw was blue.

* * *

><p>On a dark, moonless night, a figure in black drifted over the hills and down through the garden of stone.<p>

She was at home there, more so than anywhere else now. It was a place she'd been many times before and would visit many times again until they laid her low in this very ground.

She found his grave by memory. If she was blind, her feet would still have led her to it.

The wind wailed through the barren trees, disturbing her long veil, but she paid it no heed as she knelt down on the cold ground to cry the tears she hadn't been able to shed that morning he left her.

Some nights she talked to him and told him of their daughter, of how she looked just like him but had her mother's eyes. Some nights she said nothing at all, her hand resting on the earth above his bones. But most nights she just cried, for the past, the present, and what could have been their future.

She'd been crying for ten years and she was sure the tears would never stop if she lived for a hundred more.


End file.
